Activists wary of 'low-harm' cigarettes

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Quit Victoria warns that new smokes could be a tobacco
company's ploy to keep smokers hooked.

Tobacco giant Philip Morris hopes to trial "low-harm"
cigarettes, which it says will expose smokers to fewer dangerous
chemicals, by the end of the year.

The firm's senior vice-president for corporate affairs, David
Davies, said yesterday people would always smoke and governments
need to think about harm reduction instead of focusing solely on
cutting smoking rates.

The "low-harm" cigarettes would use advanced methods of
filtration and burn at lower temperatures to cut the number and
concentration of harmful chemicals in the smoke.

"Our scientific work is at a very advanced and developed stage,"
Mr Davies told The Age after speaking at the National
Press Club in Canberra. The cigarettes were part of a new
"frontier" but were unlikely to be tested initially in Australia,
he said.

While acknowledging that Australia was a leader in tobacco
control, he said New Zealand, the European Union and the United
States had gone further towards setting up scientific committees to
oversee tobacco regulation.

"They have acknowledged that now there is this next phase, this
next frontier, if you will, of regulation to address the harm
that's caused to people who, everyone knows, are going to be
smokers next year, 10 years from now, 50 years from now," he
said.

"You are going to have smokers now and into the long, long
foreseeable future."

A statement issued by parliamentary secretary for health
Christopher Pyne welcomed Philip Morris' exploration of low harm
options but said the Federal Government's priority was still to
lower the smoking rate.

The anti-tobacco lobby has mixed feelings about "low-harm"
cigarettes.

Quit Victoria executive director Todd Harper said he did not
want the debate to be driven by Philip Morris.

"I certainly acknowledge that the idea of reduced-harm
cigarettes needs to be considered and needs to be on the table," he
said. "But I'm very concerned that the tobacco industry is
positioning itself to influence the public health debate on this
issue.

"At the end of the day, this is still an industry that makes
money out of addicting people and keeping them smokers as long as
possible."

An estimated 4000 chemicals are naturally produced when tobacco
is burnt. Many of these are harmful.

Philip Morris, which makes Peter Jackson, Marlboro and other
cigarette brands, is trying to distinguish itself from its
competitors by being more socially responsible.

It has recently been criticised for buying 40 per cent of
Indonesian cigarette maker Sampoerna, which the anti-tobacco lobby
said was at odds with its stance, since tobacco regulation in Asia
is minimal and up to 70 per cent of the population smokes.